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Preston Guild 2012 (Winckley) Square Food Festival

July 20th, 2012

Taste buds are set to be tickled all over Lancashire, on 1 and 2 September, as the Preston Guild 2012 SQUARE FOOD FESTIVAL on Preston’s beautiful Winckley Square showcases some of the region’s finest food and drink.

The festival, which is set to be a fitting finale to the Love Food Love Preston month, also marks the opening to Vintage Guild Weekend. Over 35 of Lancashire’s finest food and drink producers have been carefully selected to exhibit in what’s being described by organisers as much more than just a market.

In celebration of Preston’s landmark structures and places, a giant edible map of the city will be created as ‘Preston Cake City’ invites members of the public to join in by making their favourite Preston building or venue out of cake. These delights will then be eaten at the Great Preston Picnic on Sunday afternoon. Participants can join in via the website to choose a building, upload advice and pictures, get tips and recipes and start discussion groups.

Children and adults alike will be welcomed into a Food Adventure Playground where they can play the giant Stockpot Game, test their fishy knowledge in the hilarious ‘Tunaversity Challenge’, have a go at a large scale farm animal jigsaw, or get ready to run in the Ostrich Egg and Spoon races!

Budding cooks of the future will also be playing a part, on Saturday 1 September, as local school cooking clubs work with six Prestonc hefs to design a dish and prepare a sensational prize-winning salad. On Sunday 2 September, as part of the Chef’s Adopt a School Programme, created by the Academy of Culinary Arts, local chefs will run drop in workshops for kids to explain how to experience and enjoy food using the five senses and the four tastes.

For those wanting to hunt for their tea – local experts will be running foraging trips to Avenham Park. Budding Bear Grylls will be able to try their hand at hunting and gathering followed by some wild cooking of whatever they find!

In addition to these innovations will be all the fun of the market. Winckley Squarewill be transformed into a destination for all things delicious as some of Lancashire’s most unique food and drink producers descend to compete for the Pick of the Market award.

A programme of tutored-tastings and workshops will take place over the two-day festival featuring local beers, cheeses, cured meats, breads, honey, ice cream and chocolate.

Live cooking demonstrations and making master-classes will be themed around many of the items on sale at the food market, so visitors can learn how to create amazing dishes in minutes from local produce.

In between browsing the stalls, visitors will take a culinary trip around the world as local restaurants offer a mix and match range of authentic ethnic dishes each priced at just £2.50 per dish.

Taking the Festival onto the main Guild City Festival site will be some of the best mobile food street traders from across the country who will be pitched around Avenham Park offering food from all over the world – to go!

Stella Hall, festival director at Preston Guild 2012 said: “This is a fantastic part of the Guild celebrations which will really highlight some of the delicious food and drink that is produced locally.

“Foodies of all ages will be able to get involved and experience a real taste of Lancashire. And with the fun food activities including foraging trips and Cake City on offer visitors need to bring an empty stomach and a full sense of adventure!”

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